Sunday, April 6, 2008

Naseem Mithoowani on NPR

The hate speech complaints against Maclean's magazine were brought about, in part, by the actions of four Osgoode Hall law students. One of those law students, Naseem Mithoowani, was interviewed on National Public Radio's On the Media show last Friday. You can listen to the clip here. Mithoowani had about 7 minutes airtime with host Bob Garfield.

Here is my favourite part of the interview. They are discussing the Maclean's piece:

Q: For a moment, let's agree that the piece is not only inflammatory, but, you know, fundamentally fascistic. Let's start with that as a premise.

A: Okay.

Q: Before you filed the petition, did you consider that you would be seen as intolerant of other views - and worse than that, by using the tools of Canada's liberal democracy to stifle dissent, that you were in fact realizing his very predictions, which is that Islam is, you know, is going to use the very tools of our society to take control over us all?

(Yes, I know, she is not a party to any complaint, and I also know the Human Rights Tribunals don't operate according to the same laws of evidence as the courts. I just thought it was an interesting statement.)